07 October 2004

The Possibilities of Cancer

This is my first ever blog.

I spent time yesterday evening with my friend who has stage 4 cancer. We talked about the parousia/heaven (coming of the Lord) and what eternity "will be like." I told her my struggle with the Platonic dualism that's invaded Christian thinking (body-bad, spirit-good) rendering many incapable of seeing the Genesis announcement by YHWH of Creation " made in his own image," and "very good."

We talked about heaven as a return to the Garden, the shalom (peace) in which God intended for us from the very start. We talked about God's longing to redeem all of Creation-leaving us fully in his presence and fully aware of ourselves. And we talked about how in this very moment we are only slivers of our true selves; that God sees us from every moment in the past and every moment in the future. This is who we are, our total identity.

"And then I saw a new heaven, and a new earth..." I'm grateful this morning for John's picture of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel in which Jesus' new body demonstrates our own pending ressurection (not reincartion) and the breath which brings forth new life (the Johannine Pentecost and Genesis 1 poetic description).

The Book of Isaiah declares that God will make all things new. This is hope for one whose body is ravaged with cancer and for her friend trying to make sense of the divine rumors seeping into our suffering world.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know this has nothing to do with any of the blogs, but the speaker in assembly today, made a really good point. He was talkinng about a theology class he recently attended, and how the professor asked for each of the students to bring in the books containing the rules by which each of their perspective churches are governed. All the other students brought in their rule books, but the one student brought nothing more than a bible. In fact, he was the only one who even brought one. He went on to say that division of the church was not God's plan; but a clear representation of how man's flaws get in the way of that plan. All of these rules and regulations emposed by man only distort the true purpose of the church.One unified body is what the church was intended to be, and the only way for us to acheive this is for us all to be on the same page.....of the same book!!
As usual, the bible contains the answer. It is our unwillingness to accept this answer that has lead to such division.